Tag: The Wall Street Journal

The Story:  Elizabeth Holmes was convicted by a jury in California, on four counts of a federal indictment, because as the founder and chief executive...

The Trump administration is reportedly planning to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organisation, in an unprecedented step aimed at escalating Washington’s campaign of “maximum pressure”. According to the Wall Street Journal, the administration is preparing to announce the move as early as Monday. The US state department declined to comment on the report on Friday evening. “It is hard to imagine a bigger sanctions stick than that,” said Richard Nephew, a former principal deputy coordinator for sanctions policy at the state department, and the author of The Art of Sanctions. “Frankly, I still don’t believe that this is consistent with the intent of the underlying law, which was to target non-state actors.” Trump wants to keep US troops in Iraq to 'be able to watch' Iran Read more The move, if carried out, is likely to increase the trepidation on the part of foreign companies when it comes to trading with or investing in Iran. “This is uncharted territory. We haven’t done this before,” said Ariane Tabatabai, an Iran expert at the Rand Corporation. “It is a sign the US is prepared to fully escalate ‘maximum pressure’ but what is lacking is a clear endgame. Mohammad Ali Shabani, an Iran scholar at Soas University of London, said that if the designation is announced, the Iranian government is likely to respond in kind. US will expel every last Iranian boot from Syria, says Mike Pompeo Read more “First and foremost, the Iranian parliament may move to label the US military a terrorist organization,” Shabani said, but he added he thought the Iranian military would avoid being drawn into a direct clash with US forces in the region.

Let's not condone violence right now, that is one dangerous road to go down. Plus... What about the ones without oaths? Don Jr. Signed one of the checks to reimburse Michael Cohen for the Stormy Daniels payments - from the revocable trust that Trump was supposed to put his businesses in so politics couldn't get involved with it... Ivanka went on TV to state that her dad had nothing to do with security clearances in the last month, to cover for something that isn't illegal for a President to do... Remember when Trump's kids were trying to get CIA top level security clearance? After he was cleared by the White House, Kushner’s file was reportedly submitted to the C.I.A. to be evaluated for an S.C.I., or “sensitive compartmented information” clearance—an even higher designation. officers who make clearance decisions balked, two of the people familiar with the matter said. On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that counterintelligence officials in early 2017 warned Jared Kushner that Wendi Deng Murdoch might be using her relationship with Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, to aid the Chinese government. A friend of Saudi Arabia's powerful crown prince Mohammed bin Salman was the mystery buyer of "Salvator Mundi," a painting of Christ by Leonardo Da Vinci that recently sold for a record $450 million.

Non-paywalled link for this story, which has received a Wittes boom. The new info is that Peter Smith actually struck up a business relationship with Flynn, and whatever came of those efforts, he had certainly established a reliable connection to Trump's inner circle: Additionally, in an email reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, one of Mr. Smith’s former associates wrote to a friend last week, “As you are aware Peter started a business relationship with Gen. Mike Flynn in November 2015. We spoke with him on the day he left for his trip to Moscow.” The associate, John Szobocsan, sent the email as the Journal was preparing a story on Mr. Smith and was attempting to reach Mr. Szobocsan. He didn’t respond to requests for comment. And while doing this, he was apparently very open about his connections to WikiLeaks: Beyond his connection with Mr. Flynn, Mr. Smith also claimed ties with the antisecrecy website WikiLeaks, and he solicited money to assist founder Julian Assange with legal support, according to Mr. Ortel and an email Mr. Smith sent in December 2016 that was reviewed by the Journal. Mueller is apparently very interested in Smith's efforts, and his death: Numerous people familiar with Mr. Smith’s quest have been questioned by Mr. Mueller’s investigators, including at least one witness who was called before a grand jury, according to a court document and people familiar with the matter. A grand jury subpoena described to the Journal also has sought a range of documents concerning Mr. Smith’s activities.

Faced with growing criticism that his company’s best known products and services may be biased by its employees’ political views, Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai has urged those who work at the internet giant to keep their opinions on politics to themselves. According to the Wall Street Journal, Pichai sent a memo to Google’s employees, also known as “Googlers”, on Friday warning them to that if they do anything that “undermines (users’) trust, we will hold them accountable.” “We do not bias our products to favor any political agenda,” Pichai said, in a copy of the memo that Journal said it obtained. “The trust our users place in us is our greatest asset and we must always protect it.” Pichai’s laying down of the law regarding employees’ political bias in their work comes after the leaking to the public of some discussions by Google employees that appeared to show those workers lamenting the policies and administration of President Donald Trump. Among the matters that the Journal said Google employees talked about was President Trump’s January 2017 travel ban, and ways that they could alter Google search functions to connect people to organizations and efforts opposed to the travel ban. In his memo, Pichai said no such changes were put in place. “Recent news stories reference an internal email to suggest that we would compromise the integrity of our search results for a political end,” the Journal reported Pichai as saying in the memo. “This is absolutely false.” Last month, President Trump, took to Twitter to call out Google for what he said was promoting stories critical about his presidency and tamping down reports by more friendly outlets. Trump called the actions a “very serious situation” that “will be addressed.”

Against that backdrop, federal prisoner number 40892-424 this week penned a column in the conservative opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch who is tight with Trump. Another top adviser and fundraiser went to prison in corruption schemes that served as a precursor to Blagojevich’s own indictment. "I have nobody to blame but myself for my stupidity and actions and words and what I thought I could do. "Here I am in my sixth year of a 14-year prison sentence for the routine practice of attempting to raise campaign funds while governor," he wrote. Five of those counts were later tossed on appeal, but the crimes for which he still stands convicted include: Trying to shake down the CEO of Children’s Memorial Hospital for $25,000 in campaign cash in exchange for a hike in state reimbursements for pediatric specialists. Among wiretaps played at trial were some that captured Blagojevich discussing a scheme to appoint a longtime political adversary to the post, then U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., in exchange for $1.5 million in political donations. "I’m in prison for practicing politics," read the headline on the article by the former Illinois governor. Blagojevich and his legal team also made the "politics as usual, nothing to see here" argument during his trials, but such claims were soundly rejected by federal jurors. Much of the evidence presented at those trials stemmed from court-ordered wiretaps on which Blagojevich was heard scheming to carry out the very crimes for which he was convicted. Illinois has certainly suffered its share of public corruption, and skepticism about politicians abounds.

Annafi Wahed is a name to remember. Wahed, a former worker on Clinton’s 2016 campaign, relates her unexpectedly pleasant experiences at the convention. She admits initially she was quite nervous about going to CPAC — which isn’t surprising since friends had urged her to check in regularly and warned her to try not to get killed. Wahed writes that once she got past the “Make America Great Again” hats and the “Lock her up!” chants, she discovered that the 100-plus conservatives she spoke with were actually welcoming, engaging, and interested in hearing her opinions. She was struck by the event’s big-tent atmosphere and its diversity of attendants and viewpoints. At one point, the young Democrat says she even found herself agreeing with parts of conservative commentator Ben Shapiro’s speech. In the column, Wahed noted that while “CPAC attendees were as passionate about policy as my liberal friends, they took a more lighthearted approach,” and she wondered how a President Trump supporter would have been treated at a Democratic rally. It’s an interesting question. Its mission is to “help bridge the gap between liberals and conservatives.” Wahed’s goal is for TheFlipSide to become a news source for all political persuasions, even the apolitical. If anyone can defuse the political animosity between liberals and conservatives, it may be this young woman who is capable of writing nice things about her political opponents.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Saturday accused The Wall Street Journal of misquoting President Trump, taking issue with how the newspaper worded the president's statement regarding North Korea. “I probably have a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un,” Trump is quoted in the interview. "Fake news is at it again," reads a graphic tweeted by Sanders Saturday evening. They repeatedly refused to issue one despite clear audio evidence they'd misquoted POTUS," she said later in response to a question from a Politico reporter. Another tweet from Sanders includes audio of Trump's interview with the Journal. "Here is the official audio showing WSJ misquoting @POTUS," Sanders tweeted. The president himself went after the newspaper on Sunday morning, accusing the Journal of "falsely" stating that he claimed to have a good relationship with North Korea. "The Wall Street Journal stated falsely that I said to them 'I have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un' (of N. Korea)," Trump tweeted. "Obviously I didn’t say that. "Fortunately we now record conversations with reporters ... and they knew exactly what I said and meant.

Today in 5 Lines In a dramatic escalation of the Russia investigation, President Trump’s former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, along with his business partner, Rick Gates, wereindicted on 12 counts, including money laundering and conspiracy against the United States. Despite Papadopoulos’s plea, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders insisted Monday’s indictments were not related to the Trump campaign and called instead for further investigation into the potential misdeeds of Clinton. A federal courtissued a preliminary injunction on Trump’s transgender military ban, temporarily halting its enforcement. And the FBI is investigating the Puerto Rican power authority’s decision to award a $300 million infrastructure-rebuilding contract to Whitefish, a small Montana energy firm. Today on The Atlantic A Grim Foreshadowing? : Democratic lawmakers urged Republicans to support Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation in light of Monday's indictments. A Dire Situation: Puerto Ricans are facing numerous challenges in providing and accessing adequate health care, creating nothing short of a crisis. : On Monday morning, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, surrendered to the FBI. (Eileen Sullivan, The New York Times) All Access: Over bottomless wine and rounds of golf, Tim Alberta gets to know an “unchained” former House Speaker John Boehner: a liberated retiree still wrestling with his political legacy. Share your response here, and we'll feature a few in Friday’s Politics & Policy Daily.

With Trump in the White House, he and the Australian-born media mogul have grown closer than ever, with Murdoch topping the New York Times’ list of the president’s outside advisers. And around the same time Baker lectured the newsroom on the need to be “fair” to Trump in their reporting, Politico reported. “I almost threw up,” the staffer told the Guardian of reading the story. “It really came to a head after the election,” a recent Journal departee told the Guardian. “There was a lot of concern about the instant normalizing of Trump and that the Journal’s coverage wasn’t being skeptical enough,” the former staffer told the Guardian. The departure of Rebecca Blumenstein, the paper’s deputy editor-in-chief, who had been one of the few women at the Journal in a top editorial role, for the New York Times, came as a particular blow to staff, leading to a call from reporters for more diversity in the newsroom. “The main way he influenced the coverage in a political way was not by saying you can’t write about X subject,” one former staffer said. “Almost everyone in the newsroom has a story about their story or a story of a colleague’s getting killed,” said a reporter. This year Murdoch, long adept at cultivating relationships with powerful conservatives, has become closer than ever to the White House, according to some accounts, speaking almost every day. (Neither the Journal nor the reporter who wrote it, now with the Post, responded to questioning about this story.)